Messages

31

General / Re: Where can I find different collectors for the blob pistols?

« on: April 25, 2020, 10:32:01 am »

Normal acid gun has better entanglement damage for enemies and is totally viable too on all difficulties. So you don't have to build around XAL. One thing about XAL is it is vial hungry, you empty your magazine each round. It also is IMHO so superior that all other chem weapons just become unnecessary, which is a pity. Cryo weapon is quite weak in any case (freezing too unreliable, damage to easily resisted especially compared to acid), fire weapon can be good for the fear and DOT, but is also often resisted.

If for roleplaying reasons you want to craft your own armor, run with it.

PS: I think opportunist might trigger onyourself as well, but even if not, XAL damage to you requires 100% acid resist to be viable. You do want opportunist for your normal and XAL acid gun though.

32

General / Re: Where can I find different collectors for the blob pistols?

« on: April 23, 2020, 03:05:48 pm »

Also, does anyone know if the XAL-001 causes self entanglement?

Yes, and acidic damage. You'll need Escape Artist for entanglement and 100% acid resistance to use XAL, but if you build for it the thing is INSANE (high DEX, high crit, advanced belt, and it comes out to about 6000 damage a hasted round). 100% acid resistance can be reached with CAU armor and infused tabis that mitigate acid.

33

General / Re: Where can I find different collectors for the blob pistols?

« on: April 22, 2020, 11:23:45 pm »

I think Travis in Rail Crossing sells incendiary collectors (always), and I also think the mutant map in Core City where the Cryo Orb mentor is has a cryogenic collector fixed. In both cases, I found these two places to carry them consistently. The vendor in SGS updates later also to different types.

34

Builds / Re: Pacifist build?

« on: April 14, 2020, 01:52:50 am »

Ok, under that definition this makes sense. I played pacifist runs twice (dominating, xp) and always bit the bullet that arena means killing some people. JKK faction can be played without killing except for Bogdan, so I preferred this over having "friends" kill for me. My house rule for pacifism was robots don't count if they can't be avoided (but if possible: robots are humans, too) but I also did not kill anything else, let those rat hounds live to see another day.

That made Newton in the beginning of course quite a stretch: avoid killing the beetles, tell Newton he can make it and pretend I didn't know they would kill him... And then try and sneak out of the bunker... bad memories.

I guess you are right, our mileage may vary as to what we consider "the rules" for a pacifist run.

I was really hoping there you would have had a way to avoid the arena. For instance, if you allowed the JKK faction quest line to unfold without being arena champion (JKK becomes aware of you because you managed to do a lot of things without making waves...), made the Bogdan quest completable without killing the guy (just run away once he attacks you) and all of a sudden, you would have a play-through which I'd call "reasonably pacifist". Maybe even talk the big bad at the end out of killing you with high persuasion?!

In any case, OP: doing a stealth run without killing nearly anything is extremely fun!

35

Builds / Re: Pacifist build?

« on: April 14, 2020, 12:47:34 am »

How do you avoid killing humans? You need to kill people in the arena to progress if I'm not mistaken? Same for the faction quests?

36

Builds / Re: First time player in 2020

« on: April 10, 2020, 10:39:59 pm »

Yes, higher quality components (circular wave amplifier) increase crit. In conjunction with the feat Crit Power and Spec Points. See here for more detail: https://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=5086.0

Arena battles are tough, you could lots of other things before coming back to them. Using nets, stun grenades, emp grenades, tazer can all help. Crossbow with shock bolts also stuns. If you use flashbangs you could exit combat, hide behind a pillar and lay a lot of bear traps. This allows for a lot of cheese to succeed.

You only have to go past Master Exploder to advance the story, all other opponents are optional. Arena really is tough depending on who gets initiative and most glass cannon builds have a reload fest there.

hope this helps.

37

Builds / Re: First time player in 2020

« on: April 10, 2020, 01:34:28 am »

Well, the build is not exactly min-maxed

Your stats are all over the place, so that's a bit of wasted potential. On normal, it doesn't have to mean you are f****ed, though.

Usually it's better to focus on one combat skill, i.e. guns (energy pistols) or crossbow. Each comes with a set of feats to acquire.

Given what you have, and what you like, here are some pointers:

For xbow go Critical Power (feat, lv14) and elemental bolts (same). Special tactics gives an extra free shot, marksman reduces AP cost of special bolts. All very useful feats. Try and go for a crafted cyclone crossbow with pneumatic reloader and find a quiver (belt) for AP 14 hits, which maximizes your shots per round.

For crit laser pistols, Critical Power is key, too, and high technicalities helpful (given you have the INT). High crits are only achieved by crafting your own pistol, you cannot find ones with crit. high damage. You need to install circular wave amplifiers, which you get in the faction shop from CoreTech very easily. (Learn mercantile to effective 90 for this). Sharpshooter can help for both weapons. Speciliation points also go into Crit Power for both weapons.

Both for xbow and energy pistols, learn crafting, add critical power enhancing stuff. The forum is full of good build guides for both a crossbow build and and energy pistol build (there's one I wrote just five or so topics down in the build subsection).

I think you might be ok with your build and if you like the game, you will come back after the first playthrough and try and optimize on your second build, maybe increasing difficulty etc.

38

Builds / Re: Looking for pointers on my Tank AR/Sniper build

« on: April 02, 2020, 06:15:45 pm »

Definitely looks interesting and the whole Commando spec and three bursts AR is very cool. Out of curiosity: would 3x Rapid Muzzled Hornet outdamage the 2x AA  Muzzled Hornet burst with maxed Crit Power/Crit.Chance optimization? In terms of having three bursts (plus Commando) versus two powerful bursts (plus Commando) per round, the former probably offers more versatility, but I'd be interested what the damage comparison is. Expertise on AR, I don't know though, I also don't think it makes a big difference in early-game as the damage of the AR is high compared to the Expertise boost. Have never tried it though.

39

Builds / Re: Looking for pointers on my Tank AR/Sniper build

« on: March 29, 2020, 11:17:47 am »

The sniper feats were there indeed for opening fights with a big crowd (during beach invasion, natives' fight on their island, Balor's camp) and slaying tankiest bosses (I would like so much to one shot/overkill the last boss at least once not being a Pure Psi but I'm pretty sure it won't be the case without Snipe though).
Maybe the issue here, is not my lack of critical chances but my poor choice of weapon for the use it is attended for here and I would be better off with a 12.7mm RR (AA-)scoped Corsair. I would OS an ennemy with Aimed Shot, then have 72% to OS (maybe more if he's not at full health) a second one and use Aimed Shot again the next turn. Or am I totally missing something here?

What do you think?

) My non crit sniper with PSI really worked because of high WIL and locus of control

I'll look for it on the forum. But if it is not on here, could you link it to me? I'm really interested in the concept.

Yeah, bigger sniper rifle and premeditated ThermoD opener might work better than reliance on Spearhead for your build. Not sure crit.chance stacking via Focus stim is realistic though, people keep mentioning it but it requires a bit of harvesting of stuff and I never found a lot of resources to have lots of Focus stims, so it was always rather hypothetical. And I don't think you can buy them anywhere.

I can't comment on AR, I usually use 7.62 Hornet/Marauder on a crit build and Chimera for the free burst. I think AP economy is key for you, damage should be fine for all. As Shredded Cheddar says, you want to burst a lot and spread your bullet-form love.

PSI/Sniper has so many hits on the forum, you should be fine. My take on it in a nutshell is this:

Abilities 6/3/3/3/10/10/5 +INT+PER for the rest. Feats (in order): Aimed Shot, Opportunist, Recklessness, Nimble, Premeditation, Snipe, Shooting Spree, Temporal Acc (Spec 4times a.s.a.p), Crit Power (Spec 10 times), Locus of Control, Sharpshooter(Spec 1x), Ambush, Blindsiding, Expertise (for Silent SMG), Scrutinous, PER+2,

Up until Crit-Power, Sniper Rifles are underwhelming but with full skill investment in Thought Control you get by. Later, 3 shots with rapid spearhead, always something to premeditate: either premed+LoC+Breakdown to pick off enemies at leisure, or premed+ThermoD for DaBomb or premed+LoC+Enrage for the usual cheese. But as a non-crit build, the Spearhead crits 1 out of three shots roughly, so it's really touch and go with three shots, then decision on what to premeditate depending on how the sniping went (obviously ambush and snipe help with this!). Fun to play from LoC onwards, before it no real sniper feeling.

40

Builds / Re: Looking for pointers on my Tank AR/Sniper build

« on: March 28, 2020, 12:42:17 pm »

Hi Richter,

I've played both a ThermoD non crit sniper and a Blitz/PSI crit sniper on dominating, so here's my two cents:

1) Your build will play as an AR for most of the game and has all the right feats for it in the beginning.

2) Sniping damage of Spearhead is very low until you get to Crit Power and have specced it about 4+ times, so level 24 for you? Before that, forget about sniping. Dominating features a lot of hit points and while you can force one crit with aimed shot, the rest of your two sniper shots per round will likely not kill the enemy. This means shooting spree is not that relevant in my experience.

3) If you want to snipe earlier, take crit power earlier and spec it after speccing the haste feat. But without snipe and high crit chance, you'll probably see that just using your very powerful AR is just plain better.

4) My non crit sniper with PSI really worked because of high WIL and locus of control, so I'm not sure that without decent crowd control, a lot of shots with the Spearhead will be fun/viable. It may work as an opener, but without stealth and in strong armour, you are not very mobile to play hide and seek with enemies and use the sniper rifle more often.

5) I can't really comment on the armor issues (usually nimble and armor-sloping help to be a bit more mobile, but i don't see space to squeeze them in in your build. sprint, too, so your build looks very stationary to me)

6) PER should be more than ok, you might want to turn on nightvision crit googles in some places. But again, most of the time this should be in the context of using your AR.

7) With high STR pack rathound might not be necessary, if you were to switch to a Hornet or Marauder with 7.62mm you could synergize a bit on ammo weight, and the spearhead would likely feed off W2C 7.62, so not a big issue of cannibalizing your ammo.

In my experience, the crit sniper and crit AR build gets much more fun damage, but I agree that it might conflict too much with the tankiness you aim for.

Hope this helps!

41

Builds / Re: DOMINATING Laser Pistol Critical Build: 7 shots/rd., 5+ dead, not a scientist ;)

« on: March 23, 2020, 05:16:41 pm »

I gotta confess tho that I probably played this build wrong and always healed myself to full thus wasting survival instincts, you really gotta man up with this build and walk around <30% hp and heal only when you know you gonna get ambushed by some invis lurkers, crawlers.

I gotta agree  

Now I understand your frustration with early and midgame. I played the build from Lv3 as laser pistol; I guess we found the problem now.

42

Builds / Re: DOMINATING Laser Pistol Critical Build: 7 shots/rd., 5+ dead, not a scientist ;)

« on: March 20, 2020, 04:30:48 pm »

Yes, usually the energy efficiency seemed more desirable. I've crafted a second laser pistol with smart module to play around with execute a bit, but it never seemed strictly necessary. It might help on lower levels though.

I have zero experience with polarizer, but if you one-hit adversaries, the increase in crit chance doesn't add anything.

Plasma pistols do so much damage (especially with smart module and execute) to one-shot bosses, i think. I never liked plasma pistols for their high AP, so my experience with them is limited. Most (I think "all" is more correct) bosses go down after seven shots with a laser pistol. The gain from one shot with plasma in terms of polarizer might not be big. You should have 70%+ crit chance in any case and could add a focus stim or hardcore chips for boss fights. I never had too, so this might be overkill. Also, the sound of the plasma pistol makes my skin crawl

TLDR: high energy efficiency converter & amplifier combo rules

43

Builds / Re: Need opinions on my two builds (Semi-experienced)

« on: March 20, 2020, 12:49:26 am »

You are welcome!

It's so much fun thinking about these builds. Didn't want to push you to take PSI for the character, but if you do, consider taking it from the get go. Force Field and Imprint are too great to pass up for battlefield control. Same for Electrokinesis. Psychokinesis 45 is all you need.

You get the points by removing some crafting. I don't think you will ever need effective 200 in mechanics or any of the crafting skills. If you have q150 components, 80% of the quality is required and sometimes a bit more for additional components. Destroyor has an awesome guide on steam on the thresholds. You'll get a bonus midgame that adds 15% to your skill in addition.

Speccing Premeditation cooldown is usually recommended for PSI (see AverageGortsby's classic guide here) but the Psi Cost reduction is unnecessary if you use PSI just for support. Better really spec the points into Psycho-Temp Acc. for the three shots with the Spearhead. And for PSI support speccing Premed. cooldown might not even be necessary. What do you need to cast premeditated during a fight in shorter order? These aren't big points, just food for thought if you have a plan how to play the character.

Mercantile (effective) 90 is also recommended to get better crafting inventories at merchants. The higher you skill crafting, the more you want to actually have access to crafting parts.

I agree on the Thermo D premed. thing. I actually played one Sniper without it and I find myself not using it because of the costs there. But I guess sniper is viable enough in both ways. Your build is also well set up to use laser pistols later on, they profit from high Crit Power a lot.

Depending on the difficulty you play on, the beginning might be a bit tedious, both with pistols and sniper rifles, as they both are not so great early on. Grenades and PSI helps a lot here.

Have fun!

44

Builds / Re: Need opinions on my two builds (Semi-experienced)

« on: March 19, 2020, 11:05:34 pm »

Hi, couple of observations on the sniper build:

* for a grenade build, grenadier at lvl 28 is at point where i don't think you will need it anymore. Increasing crit chance might make indeed more sense. Maybe take grenadier instead of nimble or kneecap shot, because early on, sniper rifles suck and pistols too.

* Speccing aimed shot, not sure about that too, especially when it comes to sniper rifles, which do a lot of damage anyways.

* An alternative might be: take the PSI Haste feat and spec this four times. With Psycho-temp acceleration, you then get 72 AP, which is three shots with a Spearhead Sniper Rifle with Rapid Reloader. If you are deadset on the high AP sniper rifles, ok, but honestly you just overkill too few enemies with them. With Sniper/Aimed Shot/Crit Power/Blindsiding/Sharpshooter and a crafted Spearhead, you will delete any non-boss enemy from lvl 16+ onwards. At most you need W2C ammo.

* A more radical change to the build might be going CON 9 and survival instincts, for around 2/3 crit chance, but that requires really moving around a lot (less INT etc.) and comes with drawbacks.

* Doing metathermics (Thermodynamic destab.) might be useful to extend your Spearhead/Sniper Rifle damage to full groups; in that case Premeditation makes sense so as not to waste the AP for casting the spell.

Just a couple thoughts. There was a recent thread, where a veteran actually discussed a sniper build with AGI 10 and Blitz. Speccing Blitz and Psychotemp will allow you to fire Spearhead 4x in round 1, and 3x in round two. I don't think you can top that frequency.

45

Builds / Re: DOMINATING Laser Pistol Critical Build: 7 shots/rd., 5+ dead, not a scientist ;)

« on: March 18, 2020, 04:34:33 pm »

Yeah thanks for all the tips tho. Now I stockpiled on cryo, toxic nades and magnesium nades so I got tools to push forth. Proly will have to reload here and there but its not as hopeless as depot A felt where I had no damage, no money for more traps, nades and it all felt like end of the line. I have a feeling enemies that have a jump on you will make me reload the most and also scripted fights where you can't setup your fight properly maybe?

You're welcome! Glad you feel better about the character now Scripted fights (with lots of enemies) and higher initiative are the bottlenecks. Some of them can be fun, but if you are unlucky and have to repeat them ten times due to a lucky shot out of nowhere (or one your shield doesn't absorb, or a misplaced grenade turning allies hostile) ... well, I screamed in some of the scripted battles in Expedition...